Apple CarPlay and Android Auto top in-car tech rank

Natural language voice assistants and contextually aware systems are crucial for improving in-vehicle infotainment experience, according to research from Strategy Analytics.

However, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto still provide superior experience over embedded features from car manufacturers, the report found.

Tesla’s Model S maintains its top position in the In-vehicle UX (IVX) group at Strategy Analytics’ rankings of in-car infotainment systems, as its wide range of usable and accessible features makes the system visually appealing and easy to use.

Of the new systems tested in the past year – Chevrolet 2017 Volt, Baidu CarLife, Honda 2017 Civic, Mercedes Benz 2017 E-Class and Volkswagon 2016 Golf – the 2017 Chevrolet Volt ranked the highest, largely due to strong consumer impressions of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and the intuitive way by which these mirrored systems were implemented.

Even for other vehicles which include a mirrored system but did not perform as well, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto repeatedly provide a superior experience. Furthermore and more concerning for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), current owners of these mirrored systems are using them for most of their in-car needs.

“OEMs still have room to innovate within in-car infotainment, particularly in relation to the human-machine interface (HMI) they are in a unique position to implement. But again, implementing novel HMI for the sake of being new and different is not a winning strategy.” commented Derek Viita, report author and senior analyst. “We have found that novel experiences such as the 2017 Mercedes-Benz E-Class steering wheel thumbpads are difficult to use and often abandoned for other HMI modalities early in tasks.”

Added Chris Schreiner, director, syndicated research UXIP: “Poor voice recognition was a common pain point among all systems benchmarked over the past year, with the exception of CarPlay’s Siri and Android Auto’s Google Assistant. The successful rollout of natural language voice assistants and contextually aware systems will be crucial for improving the on-board infotainment experience going forward.”

About Smart Chimps

Smart Chimps is the creation of freelance editor, writer and media trainer, Heather McLean. Heather has been involved in telecoms journalism since 2001, specialising in mobile since 2002. Find out more